Brooklyn's 4th Ave

The super-gentrification of Brooklyn's 4th Avenue has created a bizarre battleground. On the hotly contested borderline between Gowanus and Park Slope, thick-legged condos wrap their thighs around tenements, gripping the old buildings in scissor holds, wrestling them into submission.

The little white walk-up below is already for sale and the absence of substantial windows in the crotch of condo Argyle says it might be waiting for a shaft of glass to fill it.



Le Bleu, the luxury boutique hotel, welcomes guests "to a whole new world of uber chic glamour and luxurious living." Their finest rooms offer a prime Gowanus view: U-Haul lot, concrete silos, sewage:



Enjoy these views from Bleu's balcony. If you squint your eyes, far off in the distance, you can just make out the green figurine of Lady Liberty. Does she still welcome the tired, poor, huddled masses, the homeless, the wretched refuse to her golden door?



The wretched refuse is right here. All along 4th Avenue, glistening towers sprout up from deserts of weeds and barbed wire. They overlook dialysis centers, taxi garages, and flat-fix shops. The sidewalk foams with soap from a humming car wash. Billboards ask the stacks of used tires, "Who wants to be a millionaire?"



"Style and Substance" reads a sales banner draped across a condo's side, windowless, as if closing its eyes to the neighboring greasy Golden Arches. Another sign nearby warns, "Car stripping will bring police immediately."



Riding a wave of irrational exuberance, the development here might be called "flash gentrification," it happened so fast. Instant and massive, it's like a coordinated invasion by a foreign army. Like an attack of alien warships that suddenly drop from the sky. Shock and awe.

But with the economic immolation, some are wondering if 4th Avenue will "crash and burn." As condos convert to rentals and money dries up all over town, who will enjoy those Bleu views? Who will fill those condos with West Elm furniture? Who will make love to the Clover brewer at the Root Hill cafe?



A movie billboard, at first glance, seems to speak for the long-time residents, but maybe it's the newcomers who will think twice if flash-gentrification hasn't succeeded in turning 4th into a sanitized Park Avenue. Either way, on this battlefield, someone will someday be saying, "They're here. We're gone."

• See more 4th Avenue photos here

*Everyday Chatter

As expected and against all our hopes, the P&G will close at the end of this year. New Year's Eve will be our last chance to bask in the glory of that old bar. Take a virtual visit to the P&G--and then go for real. [LC]

In other depressing old-man bar news, the Holland has been really, really gutted. Maybe we'll get one of those fake Irish "pubs" after the renovation. Perhaps the "Country Cottage" design. [EVG]

Danny Hoch assaults gentrifiers in a new performance and urges uneasy upper-middle-class audience members to hold on to the feelings of exclusion and alienation his work induces. Check out this compelling interview. [NYT]

How will a depression effect the skyline? Says Columbia prof, it could be "very good for preservation because there [isn't] the money to demolish buildings." And "new construction is going to take a nose dive...a lot of new residential buildings are going to have a lot of trouble." [NYT]

What used to be Daphne's Hibiscus turned Blue Mahoe, on 14th and 2nd, is now Mr. Jones Yakitori, a swingin' Barbarella kind of set where people get all dressed up to eat meat on a stick.


Daphne's, however, is a survivor. You can still find her directly across the street where she merged with Chomp. Read about Daphne Mahoney here.

Prime Burger

For a perfect day, spend the pre-crowd morning at the Whitney's big William Eggleston show, soaking up images from the 1960s and early 1970s. Somehow, a shot of a ketchup bottle on a countertop is evocative in his lens. I often wonder, when looking at old photographs, why the objects and the people of the present time fail to evoke much of anything, and if they will eventually come to life decades from now.


Photo: William Eggleston, Eggleston Artistic Trust

After the show, head downtown and walk into a living Eggleston photograph at Prime Burger on 51st near Madison. Here, as if by magic, the present moment gains poignancy, snapshots turn into something resembling art. It's the place, with its woodgrain paneling and conical ceiling lamps, its long diner counter, and (most enchanting) its comfortably infantilizing seats with highchair-style swinging trays.



Customers at the counter look momentarily alienated and tired, bathed in Eggleston hues of rust, ochre, and brown. The waiters, in their white valet jackets, have come from another age to serve you burgers, fries, and root-beer floats that overflow in a bubbling eruption of foam.



The plain maroon awning outside will tell you nothing about what's on the inside. This hidden gem used to be Hamburg Heaven, founded in 1938, frequented by stars like Rita Hayworth and Henry Fonda (more recently SJP), mentioned in Breakfast at Tiffany's and The Apartment (“So I figure, a man in his position, he's going to take me to 21 and El Morocco--instead, he takes me to Hamburg Heaven and some schnook's apartment.”)

The 51st Street location turned into Prime Burger in 1965. It has not been renovated since.



Stopped in time, locked into your chair, you feel like a child. You order more than you can eat, consider a slice of coconut cake. The other diners in your cubicle do the same, going wide-eyed when the delicacies are delivered. At lunchtime, on a Saturday anyway, they are mostly tourists. They are excited to be here, discovering the true wonders of New York City. And so are you.

• See all my Prime Burger photos on flickr

Watching Willets Vanish

The city is snatching up Willets Point, wrestling and bribing the property from its rightful owners. And if that doesn't work, Bloomberg will simply steal it, just like he stole our democracy. I've written about Willets Point a few times and today seems right for a reminder of what is there--and what will be lost.

While some property owners have sold, the men of Bono Sawdust are staying strong. Says Jake on NY1, "There's 70 landowners out here and 250 businesses that the City didn't even talk to...we still own the land and we're not for sale and we're not going anywhere."

I visited the Bonos at their sawdust plant and you can read the interview here, then listen to what Jake had to say on the Brian Lehrer show.


The Bono boys: photos from my flickr

The Iron Triangle is not just a rough-and-tumble area, and it's not blighted. It's a thriving human social system where people work hard to sustain themselves in this city. Take a visit to the Iron Triangle.

*Everyday Chatter

Enjoy a beautiful photo of the original International Bar--and read about the bar's history here. [EVG]

Protest Prop 8 tomorrow--join the rest of the country in standing up for human rights. Whoopi is doing it. [TR]

Danny Hoch is doing a gentrification thing at the Public.

Get advice from a geezer on how to get ready for the return of old New York. [VV] But until then...

My pet condo, One Jackson Square, is now producing condos for pets. Seriously. Little, undulating, luxury condos for dogs. [Curbed]

Little Jam

I've been waiting for this one to vanish and now it's gone. The odd little addendum to Jam Envelope & Paper on 3rd Ave and 14th St has been demolished.

Seems like, if it's made of bricks, if it's one or two stories tall, and it's near the corner of 14th and 3rd, it must be destroyed. The upzoning plan that has led to this began in the mid-1990s: Said city planner Peter Pfeffer, "The goal is to extend the strengths of the retail corridor to the east and also to provide new opportunities for residential development." Mission accomplished.



The Toll Brothers brutally took the Variety Theater, but their tower wasn't the first to arrive. The NYU Coral Towers dorm with the Duane Reade used to be the Sahara Hotel, built in 1900 and sold in 1999 when the 14th Street "revival" came knocking (Times). The sale was dubbed "Sahara-gate," as its owners were forced by the city to sell and "accused the city of 'improper motives to sell the property to politically connected people.'"

All I remember of the Sahara were the XXX video stores on the first floor, the greasy peep booths, the prostitutes lingering outside. The Times called it "The last remnant of 14th Street's seedy past."



After Toll we lost everything on the southeast corner. I thought Robin Raj would be the next to go, but it's still alive beneath it's FOR SALE sign. The little Jam house of bricks has long felt vulnerable--it looked like a frightened mouse hiding between a pair of rocks while a hungry hawk circled overhead--but its sudden vanishing still took me by surprise.

You can bet some clever architect is somewhere licking his chops, delighting in a scheme to slip a sliver of glass into this narrow cleft of sky.

6th Ave Food Court

The block of 6th Avenue between 21st and 22nd looks like the food court in a suburban shopping mall. A new Chickpea (formerly restricted to the East Village/LES invasion) is moving in next to a new Red Mango, which is next to a McDonald's, which is next to a Starbucks. The chain of chains is broken only by the Greenkay furniture company--which is followed by a Chipotle, then a New York Burger Co.



But Greenkay now has a For Rent sign over it.

I don't know how long Greenkay has been in business, but it seems like a long time. They specialize in stripped metal office furniture, which looks pretty cool, and is even a favorite of home decor blog Apartment Therapy.



The Chipotle and New York Burger went into the former Wolf Paper & Twine buildings, one of which still has a painted sign high up on the bricks. According to Walter Grutchfield's 14to42, Wolf was founded by a Russian named Wolf Lubitz in 1916 and was located here from the 1940s until 2003. (Click here to read about Mr. Grutchfield.)


photo: Walter Grutchfield, 2002

There's not much left to see here. Although, around the corner on 21st, hidden out of sight, you'll still find Ace Pump Corp., family owned since 1936 and sporting a nifty sign.